rum

Humans dont have to be stupid like AI. You are not the very first "King of the Offline" who would learn that he is only the peon while playing with live opponent(s).

http://www.iremember.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=1&id=12&Itemid=36 At the bottom of this page, where are links of the "I Remember" project published books. Part of them in russian, part of them in english By the way, the whole site is worth to read.

I though it was cluster shaped-charge bombs. Which were introduced in WWII, for example on Il-2.

Its a common situation of all axis/allies split. Germany, Finland, Japan had much more fighter aces then their opponents. But growing the personal kill numbers does not win the air war, like history shows...

Good post, Bigduke6. I'd wrote this couple times, and I'd repeat again: Its not the Soviet/German disbalance, its one major flaw in the armor vulnarability of the CM engine. While CM engine does shine in the kinetic energy penetration/damage model (no doubt, i consider it the best from all the games i saw), it does absolutely ignores the effect of non-penetrating HE explosion on the tank. The simple test that everyone could perform himself in the Scenario Editor: Take a small field, one german "heavy armor" like Ferdinand and one soviet "large caliber" (anything with 152 mm). Make both units facing each other and immobile (like putting em in forest terrain). Remove all ammo from german vehicle and leave only HE rounds in soviet vehicle. Crew must not be conscripts. Launch the scenario and hit "Go". You would see how 152mm HE rounds would hit opponent armor without any effect, until a gun shot or track shot. The CM damage model consider the non-penetrating hits like absolutely harmless until they hit something predesigned like cannon or tracks. You might see how dozens of 50 kilogramm 152mm HE shells fireworking on the armor plate, without any negative effect on the vehicle and its crew. Only in case of "gun damage" and/or "immobilization" crew would deside to bail out. In the real life, like many accounts write, even a single non-penetrating 122mm HE hit could cause engine shut-down, pipes rupture, internal armor flaking, crew shock/disorientation or even incapasitation...

By the way, this is a typical statement for NaziBoys ©

Yes, and sometimes Theory of Probability doing unexpecting things. As it was with one of the Ferdinant under the Kursk, which only damage was a barrel shot-through with the 14.5mm ATR. Crew decided to bail after lossing the firepower...

This would discussed several times, may be you'd want to check the archives. The wide usage of ATRs in Red Army in the early/mid war was a forced measure. Due to losses of industrial infrastructure of lots of real anti-tank assets and mechanized transportatation, soviet economy had to give troops some cheap substitution. ATR had way relaxed requirements to produce, didnt required trucks/horses to transport, and were giving Red Army some AT abilities and some morale boost in case of being attacked by tanks.

At least one good movie is published with english dubbing and lots of other languages subtitles: http://ruscico.com/eng/films/3 Where are several more good movies, but i didnt heared they available in english..

Duh... Of cause i meant "large stock of 76.2mm cannons ammo"

Its just a BS. The only and the main reason that USSR designed 76.2mm cannons is the large stock of 76.2mm cannon from the World War I.

The name is related with a person, not with how the loading works. PTRS is russian abbreviation of ProtivoTankovoye Ruzhie Simonova. (AntiTank Rifle, Simonov). Simonov is a surname of weapon engineer who created it. PTRD was developed by Degtiarev. PTRS was indeed semi-automatic, with a clip containing 5 rounds, and had theoretical technical ROF of 15 rounds per minute.

I think I would agree with Mejsel, perharbs not in that sharp form as he said his words though. I read several of Soviet accounts, memoires, and statistical studies and the history of ATR deployment. ATR were always considered as a "second-class" weapon. It was generaly disliked by the soldiers themselves. Russian war-time proverb discribe typical fate of ATR gunner: "Long barrel, short life". Of cause, it is better to have a battery of anti-tank cannons then the ATR platoon or even ATR companie. The problem of Soviet army was that infantry did not had enough "first-class" anti-tank assets available. ATR was "mobilization" anti-tank weapon. Quite cheap to produce. Quite light to be carried by regular infantry who had to move on their own feet. And it had some (although minimal) anti-tank value. As the bottles with incendiary mixture and grenade bundles had. The high amount of ATR in the Red Army was not because of ATR magic ability to kill Kingtiger head-on at 2 kilometers. It was because at the heavies years, Soviet industry was not able to support every infantry division with enough anti-tank guns, and logistics was not able to support enought trucks to tow those guns and to carry ammunition to them. This is the main reason why ATRs were widely used in Red Army. ATRs never were successful weapon, and were widely used only because of desperate situation with more capable anti-tank weapon. As for the Kursk Battle and killed Ferdinand, I just gave this example on the heaviest registered ATR victim. Another Ferdinand, for example, was disassembled by direct hit of 203mm howitzer shell. But this lucky hit do not make 203mm howitzers a specialized anti-tank weapon

KV was not the heavies ATR victim. Where is a famous analysis (I remember I posted the info about it) of 21 killed Ferdinants study after Kurst battle. One Ferdinand was abandoned by its crew because of ATR round shot through its barrel, rengering it useless. So one of the most heavy armor was killed by single ATR hit.

This is a very widespread myth. One should think german memoires and all the "Wehrmacht fetishists" who do blindly believe to memoires. In real life, cavalry were fighting dismounted. Horses were used for marches and to tow artillery and ammo and supply. Before the battle, cavalrymen were dismounted, and where were a special person (one per 5 or 6) who had to take care about horsed during fight. The accident with mounted polish cavalry vs tanks was in real life some like this: Poles spotted german infantry on the rest. Commander decided to charge mounted attack onto unawared infantry. Poles started the attack, wrecking havoc and killing with firearms and sabres, while germans tryed to run for cover, cought by surprize. Suddently, two german armored cars, previously hidded in the trees, rolled out and opened MG fire. The picture has changed - now polish horsemen were running and dieing under fire.

Looks like people generaly misunderstand the whole concept ofKatyusha. If you would compare it with regular artillery, you'd not see anything unusual. Standard M-13 launcher had 16 rails, so it was able to fire 16 rockets with 4.9 kg of HE each. The power of such rocket is somewhere like 120mm mortair or 152mm howitzer. But Katyusha were not deployed like a regular artillery. This was a weapon which allowed to prepare strike (before enemy recon discovered it), fire whole salvo in 7..10 seconds, and then instantly change position (after 15 seconds from the first rocket launched). One "division" (12 launchers, 192 rockets salvo) was the minimum standard unit to operate with. Of cause often more then 1 divisions were deployed simultaniously. Could you imagine the effect, similar with 200, or 600, or 3,000 152 howitzers instant salvo (10-20 seconds duration) at the small area? Plus, absolute inexpectedly, at the area the recon was sure no artillery concentrated? This was the system to deliver one (only one), but highly-concentrated strike. Due to vulnerability of the carrier, and low accuracy, it had no chance in the counter-battery duel. So after a single salvo (rarely quick reload and second salvo), Katushas were rolling and quickly leaving the lauch area, before enemy airplanes could arrive or retalliation arty fire could hit dirt.

Then you probably would not like this: http://battlefield.ru/books/enemy.html :eek:

Where is a book written by V. Zaitsev, "Where is no land for us beyound Volga. The notes of sniper". In this book, he described this duel with great details. Also, this duel is mentioned in other soviet memoires, like Chuikov's "The battle of century". Most of this books available in the internet online (in russian)

Split Poland? Hmmm... Perharbs Poland should protest and demand back parts of Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithvinia back... It would be funny to look at, realy...

From the William Shirer - "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". "The Fuehrer has decided to have Leningrad wiped from the face of the earth. The further existence of this large town is of no interest once Soviet Russia is overthrown… Requests that the city may be handed over, arising from the situation within, will be turned down, for the problem of the survival of the population and of supplying it with food is one which cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for existence, we have no interest in keeping even part of this great city’s population… "

The most fundamental research from Russian side is the book "Russia and USSR in the wars of XX century: Casualties of armed forces. Statistical research" under the supervision of Gen. Col. Krivosheev. Unfortunatly, i never heared if it was translated to english/published at the West. Here is an excerp about soviet armed forced losses in WWII http://www.soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter5_08.html Its in russian, but look at the tables in the chapter. First table Fatal casualties of RKKA and VMF (navy) by the years and quartals. 1st column: Period, years and quartals. (the bottom three rows are "total in war with germany", "total in the Far East campain", "total during WWII"/ 2nd : KIA and died during evacuation 3rd: died from wounds in hospital 4th: Died from deceases and accidents 5th: MIA and POW 6th: Total Second table (or a part 2 of table 1): Medical losses Medical loss is considered a person who was detached from his regiment for medical reason for at least one full day (24 h). A single person could be counted as a several medical loss, in case of multiple wounds/deceases. Its using the same "years and quartals" grid as the first table 1st column: Wounded, Shocked, Burned 2nd columt: Got sick 3rd columt: Freezed 4th: Total

These are "ShISBr". "Shturmovie Inzhenernye-Sapernye Brigady". Closest terms are "Assault Engineers" or "Sturmpioneeren". An assault team, trained to use SMG, high explosives, flamethrowers and to perform assaults onto heavy fortification/defended buidings in cityfights. They were also trained in the melee combat. Another group of pics is here: http://fortress.vif2.ru/biblio/shisbr/ The armor plate protecting forward body, shown at the photo, had different feeling among this troops. Those who fought at the open field, strongly disliked it and tend not to use it. Those who fought in the cities, liked it and used it.

Game engine does not handle non-penetrating hits of large-caliber HE shells. In real life, direct hit of 122/150/152mm shell, then not penetrating armor, usualy render tank useless. Engine cut off, hidraulic pipes rupture, crew shocked/incapacitated e.t.c In CM, such non-penetrated hits affect only crew morale.

If you read the soviet Kursk Battle AAR, you could learn what one of the 21 Ferdinantswhich were killed had the only damage - ATR shot-thru its barrel and rendered Ferdinand unsuable, so crew abandoned the vehicle.

Sardukar, ZiS-2 was made to the RKKA before the war. http://www.battlefield.ru/guns/atg_4.html if you look this table http://krieg.wallst.ru/frames-h/hkanone-1.html you'd see what above 300 were produced in 1941. The table is in russian language but you should have no trouble to see numbers like "57mm" and "1941" and "371" If you are realy interested i could search for some real documents for the deployment of this gun during 1941. Sorry seems i failed to understand your phrase about "intentions and practicalities", prolly language barier prevents me from . As far as i see, ZiS-2 _was_ in action in 1941, it _was_ superior to the PAK-38 in the AP terms, and USSR _had_ the technologies to produce high-velocity cannons in the early-war and even before. Of cause the price of this cannons was astronomics, but they did prodused and used in 1941.